d by millions of snakes and other "such
hospitable reptiles." The lake is situated on the western country of the
Crows, and I doubt if it has ever been visited by any Shoshone.]

A proof of their antiquity and foreign extraction is, that but few of
their records and traditions are local; they refer to countries on the
other side of the sea, countries where the summer is perpetual, the
population numberless, and the cities composed of great palaces, like
the Hindoo traditions, "built by the good genii, long before the
creation of man."

There is no doubt, indeed it is admitted by the other tribes that the
Shoshone is the parent tribe of the Comanches, Arrapahoes, and
Apaches--the Bedouins of the Mexican deserts. They all speak the same
beautiful and harmonious language, have the same traditions; and indeed
so recent have been their subdivisions, that they point out the exact
periods by connecting them with the various events of Spanish inland
conquest in the northern portion of Sonora.

It is not my intention to dwell long upon speculative theory, but I must
observe, that if any tradition is to be received with confidence it must
proceed from nations, or tribes, who have long been stationary. That the
northern continent of America was first peopled from Asia, there can be
little doubt, and if so, it is but natural to suppose that those who
first came over would settle upon the nearest and most suitable
territory. The emigrants who, upon their landing, found themselves in
such a climate and such a country as California, were not very likely to
quit it in search of a better.

That such was the case with the Shoshones, and that they are descendants
from the earliest emigrants, and that they have never quitted the
settlement made by their ancestors, I have no doubt, for all their
traditions confirm it.

We must be cautious how we put faith in the remarks of missionaries and
travellers upon a race of people little known. They seldom come into
contact with the better and higher classes, who have all the information
and knowledge; and it is only by becoming one of them, not one of their
tribes, but one of their chiefs, and received into their aristocracy,
that any correct intelligence can be gained.

Allow that a stranger was to arrive at Wapping, or elsewhere, in Great
Britain, and question those he met in such a locality as to the
religion, laws, and history of the English, how unsatisfactory would be
their implies; ye